Lisbon’s Two-Day Uprising Still Shapes Portugal’s Politics

A generation born long after the fall of the monarchy still feels the ripple of that abrupt break with the past: a humiliated empire, a king felled in broad daylight and a republic proclaimed after two sleepless nights of street fighting. From Lisbon’s cafés to university seminars, the question lingers—was 5 October 1910 an overdue leap into modernity or the first chapter in a saga of instability that still colours Portuguese politics?

A nation cornered by debt and diplomacy

By 1900 Portugal’s treasury was bleeding, its factories stalled and its fields under-productive. The monarchy, once the guarantor of expansion, appeared powerless. Mounting foreign debt, stagnant industry, unemployment in the coastal cities, tax hikes that hit smallholders, fading faith in constitutional reforms, extravagant royal spending, railway projects left unfinished, British investors tightening credit and press cartoons mocking the court formed the backdrop to rising discontent. But the real spark to mass indignation came from abroad. The ambitious Mapa Cor-de-Rosa—Lisbon’s dream of linking Angola to Mozambique—collided with London’s Cape-to-Cairo vision. When the Ultimato Britânico of 1890 ordered Portuguese troops to pull back, it was read at home as national humiliation, diplomatic capitulation, betrayal by an ally, loss of imperial prestige and proof the Braganzas could no longer defend the flag. Republican orators seized the moment, promising “respect abroad and bread at home.”

Bullets in the Praça do Comércio

Lisbon awoke on 1 February 1908 expecting a royal procession; it ended the day counting bodies. King Carlos I, Prince Luís Filipe, an open carriage without extra guards, Carbonária gunmen mingling with the crowd, shots echoing off arcades, panic on tramlines, Queen Amélia brandishing a bouquet as weapon, Manuel Buíça’s Winchester rifle, Alfredo Costa’s revolver, the heir firing back before collapsing, photographer Joshua Benoliel’s gritty images, 18-year-old D. Manuel injured but alive—all unfolded in minutes on the cobblestones of the Praça do Comércio. Contemporary police files, revisited in 2025, underline how security lapses, censorship of warnings, deep infiltration by radicals and the regime’s overconfidence turned the square into a killing ground. With two monarchs dead, the throne passed to a teenager, and with it passed the last illusion that reform could outrun revolution.

Forty-eight hours that redrew the flag

Political tempers simmered for two more restless years. In early October 1910 tension snapped. Republican conspirators inside the navy, arsenals handed over to rebels, artillery fire from the cruiser Adamastor toward the royal palace, workers erecting barricades near Bairro Alto, telegraph lines cut to provincial garrisons, loyalist units hesitating, civilians parading the green-and-red banner, street preachers calling for “a Portugal of citizens, not subjects,” D. Manuel fleeing to Mafra and then Ericeira, the provisional government announcing amnesty, Teófilo Braga reading the proclamation from the balcony of the Paços do Concelho and church bells drowned out by cheers all fit inside a breathless span from 3 to 5 October. By dawn of the fifth, power had changed hands without foreign intervention, the monarchy’s navy had switched sides, the carbonari melted back into civilian life, a tricolour replaced the blue-and-white flag and Lisbon’s newspapers thundered “Viva a República!” Even so, veterans recall sniper fire near Rossio, makeshift hospitals in convents and 24 corpses left unclaimed, symbols that the birth of the republic was anything but bloodless.

The debate in 2025: legacy, lessons and lingering fractures

A century and a quarter later, Portugal prepares for the 115th anniversary celebrations amid academic conferences on regime stability, museum exhibits revisiting photojournalism of the regicide, town-hall debates on secularism, podcasts dissecting the short reign of D. Manuel II, editorials comparing 1910’s debt woes to today’s Eurozone pressures, school curricula updating the story with gender and regional perspectives, politicians trading barbs over “unfinished republican promises,” historians rereading British cables on the ultimatum, legal scholars probing early press-freedom laws, tour guides mapping revolutionary Lisbon and community groups restoring bullet-scarred façades around Terreiro do Paço. New research has not unearthed sensational archives, but it emphasises how economic fragility, imperial overreach and elite distrust of elections combined to doom the monarchy. As Portugal wrestles with its own 21st-century challenges—public debt ceilings, debates over devolution, voter fatigue—the events of 1890-1910 resonate as a cautionary tale: a state that ignores multiple warnings may wake up to find its very symbols erased overnight.